Mac Strut and SLA wheel rate

[meb]

I PM'd one of our members but thought I might throw the question out to the group.

I understand that motion ratio is limited the suspension's geometry, and that, wheel rate is what the tire sees. If track width is increased, should I expect wheel rate to change with either a SLA or Mac Strut? Part of my intuition make me think that the answer is not so black and white with a Mac strut...that perhaps geometry can affect whether or not a change occurs...and that spring and damping rates may be so high as to make any minor difference meaningless.

The arugment I posed was that if I flipped my 05 Mini over and pressed down on the front tire's centerline with enough force to displace the tire one inch, it would take less force to achieve the same range of motion if the tire was say 20mm farther away from the lower ball joint.

A primitive picture - using a pry bar to lift a 100lb stone with the fulcrum in the middle of a 10' long or 20' long pry bar...the 20' bar requires half the force to left the stone - assuming no deflection.

Michael